


Scars

by pretty0dd_semisweet



Category: Blink-182
Genre: AU, Angst, Hurt, M/M, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 19:22:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pretty0dd_semisweet/pseuds/pretty0dd_semisweet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I hate myself for it, you know. I hate myself for caring so much. Because I still care about what they may think, even if I don’t want to be like them.<br/>~<br/>This is somewhat like a diary. It's from Tom's POV and the chapters are going to be different parts out of his life. It's mostly concentrated on how Mark had helped him during the time, the first 2 chapters are mostly to explain Tom's mental state.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Of Poems and People

**Author's Note:**

> If you think about starting to cut, don't read this. Just don't. Promise me, okay? If you cut and don't like to think about it, don't read it, because I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable. If you have stopped cutting, don't read it. I don't want you to go through it again. Please, listen to me, guys. This here is personal, and I care for you, okay? Don't read it if it'll make you do something you'll deeply regret.  
> Please.

Of Poems and People

 

Another cut in the skin. Another drop of blood on my sheets. Another mark on my bruised wrist.

Today it was just a small one. Not to deep, but it still drew blood. It was enough to make me feel it, make the pain I felt physical.

Today I did it because of why I started. I couldn’t wait to come home, I had been waiting to do it all day long since the incident. Since the incident that reminded me of what I have become.

It was a long time ago. Time didn’t matter anymore and I can’t really remember when it started, really. Well, not the day, but I still knew why it started. I would never be able to forget it. It had more or less been because of the same reasons why I still did it. It doesn’t really matter anymore, actually. Nothing matters anymore.

I think it was a summer day. It was nice weather, it was hot and the ground seemed to glow, heat radiating from the tar, the dark street against the bright sky, the blue sky, not a single cloud to be seen. I remember that I had wished that the sky would stay that way, cloudless, until the night came, so I could look up to the stars and look at their constellations. I had always liked space. It was just so interesting, so fascinating, so endless. Maybe it was this endlessness that made me like it, maybe it was the unknowingness, that came with it. There was so much we didn’t know about space yet, so much to still find out, that it was almost impossible to not be impressed. I would have lied, if I said that I wouldn’t want to go there someday, up into the sky. Space, I mean, not heaven.

I didn’t believe in heaven. It was just too unrealistic. And even if there was, not a single human soul would have been pure enough to go there. We were all sick, deep inside. We were all sick and twisted and evil. Every single one of us. You can deny it, or you can be true to yourself, in the end you know I’m right. I admit some people try to control themselves, the impulses of anger and fear. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But there are also people who don’t even try at all. They don’t care.

It’s probably those people that made me who I am today. I’m not better than them, I never said that. It would be a lie, and I never wanted to be a liar. I never wanted to be like them.

That was the problem maybe. That I was different, I mean. Those people don’t understand it. Those people don’t understand that we aren’t all the same, they don’t understand that there are people who don’t want to be like them. They just don’t fucking understand.

Because of this lack of understanding they think they can do whatever they want. The problem is that they don’t only think that, they actually do it.

Well, that specific day it just got too much. The things they said, the thinks they did. Maybe even what they thought. Hell, I was so scared of what they thought about me. I still am.

I hate myself for it, you know. I hate myself for caring so much. Because I still care about what they may think, even if I don’t want to be like them.

So, when I went to school that day, everything was like it always was.

Boring, annoying, painful.

I never liked going to school, but the last year had been really bad. My grades had dropped, some of my friends had stopped talking to me, my family situation was getting out of control.

The thing is, even if that particular thing wouldn’t have happened that day, it would have happened some other day. It was just a matter of time, I guess. In the end, I probably was destined to end up like this.

It’s actually a shame, because the day actually seemed to start so nice. The weather and everything, not school. School was never nice.

My 3rd period had been English. I remember it so clearly because it had always been my favourite class, especially our topic back then: poems.

I had always liked writing them. I enjoyed reading them as well, but actually writing them felt like it fulfilled me. It felt like a good way to get rid of what you felt, just scribbling down some lines on a blank sheet, making something. Those poems were personal, they were my deepest secrets and my biggest weakness. Because even before that day, actually a long time before that day, I had stopped feeling well.

So, at the beginning of the period our teacher handed out our poems that we had given to him. We needed to do it as a homework, and although I felt really uncomfortable actually giving him what I wrote, I was still kind of proud of it. We didn’t have a specific topic about writing, but he had said it should have been something that interested us, something that had been going on inside our heads for some time.

When he gave me my homework back, I couldn’t really tell what the look he was giving me meant. It could have been surprise or worry, I still wasn’t sure. But there was something else. I think it was some sort of respect.

Maybe it was this gesture that made me think it would be okay to read it out loud, when he asked me after he gave all the poems back to the other students. Maybe it was the believe, that I wasn’t that bad. Maybe it was the thought of maybe changing something with it.

As I started reading it, I already knew, this was going to be my end. I had dug my own grave, but it was too late to stop now.

_We are all the same,_

_And still I refuse to be like you,_

_You only live for the fame,_

_While I live to be true._

_We are all the same,_

_But I’ll never be good enough,_

_All you have for me is shame,_

_But still I act so tough._

_We are all the same,_

_So why do you make it so hard,_

_Make it seem like it’s a game,_

_Here I’m left alone and scarred._

_We will never be the same,_

_My dearest friend,_

_There’s not only me to blame,_

_So why should I pretend?_

 

The silence had hurt my ears. It was the calm before the storm. The hurricane I had summoned.

I can still remember the words, they are as clear as they were that day. I don’t think I could ever forget them, no matter how hard I’d try, they would come back and haunt me.

“Are you writing poetry now, faggot? Go cry and slit your wrists if you’re so _left alone and scarred,_ _my dearest friend_.”

It had been one of the jocks. I had always hated them. Now I hated them even more. They had not just insulted me, but turned my own creation against me, they had used my own words to hurt me.

And they had succeeded.

I don’t even remember if that guy got detention for saying it. He should have. He would have deserved something far worse though. A fucking detention wouldn’t heal the wounds he had ripped open. It would have been better than nothing though. As I said before, I don’t remember if he really got detention, the rest of the hour just rushed past me. I hadn’t said a single word nor did I write one down, and I barely heard the teacher saying something after the guy had said the words. My words. He had made them unpure. He wasn’t supposed to say them, he maybe wasn’t even supposed to hear them. Actually nobody had been supposed to hear them. I really don’t know what I’ve been thinking.

Sometimes I wonder what that guy would do if he knew I took his words serious. I wonder if he would have regretted saying them. I wonder if he regrets saying them.

I don’t think he does. Nobody does. Nobody cares.

The break was even worse. I got shoved around, they laughed at me, they emptied my bag on the floor.

And nobody said a word.

Nobody said a fucking word.

They were just standing around, listening to the jocks saying how much of a faggot I was, how fucked up I was, how gay my poetry was. I was just that boy that nobody wanted to be seen with after all. Why should they stand up for me, anyway? I had never done a thing for them, and they’d never do something for me. That’s how it was. That’s how it always will be.

So when I came home I grabbed the a knife and did what that boy had told me, a boy, not older than me, but still so different.

I cut open my skin.

Because I didn’t care anymore and still cared too much.


	2. Of Memories and Mothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today is for my mother.  
> Because she doesn’t care.  
> ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, don't read this if self-harm could lead you to something you'll deeply regret, no matter if you're only thinking about starting it, if you're doing it, or if you did and don't want to be reminded.  
> Please, don't read it then.  
> Thank you, and lots of love.

Today is for my mother.

Because she doesn’t care.

The blood is dripping, onto my leg, onto my jeans. Another red mark on the fabric.

It’s scary how it’s just “another one”. It’s scary because I don’t think it’s wrong anymore. It’s scary because I deserve it.

It was a nice day, the sun was shining and the birds were singing. Again. Isn’t it funny how they never got tired of it? I envy them a little, they could just fly away whenever they want, spread their wings and dive into the depths before rising up into the air, gliding through it elegantly. When I would finally fly, it would be the end of me.

Why did it always have to be nice weather when the worst things happened? It seemed satirical, and misplaced, but not in the way that the weather was wrong, but me.

I didn’t belong here.

We sat outside, in our garden. The shadows of the roof were overcastting us, making the heat more bearable.

The past days had been hell. School had been hell, home had been hell. If I could still call it home. I wasn’t sure anymore. I had been on the edge of crying almost all the time, even when I finally fell asleep at night I dreamt upsetting and confusing things, which I was glad to forget after waking up. The scars on my wrist had gotten more these days, but you’d probably call them wounds. Cuts. Whatever. Most of them hadn’t scarred yet, they were still angry red, thin lines that would fade after some time, just to get joined by new ones.

Mom and I had spend the day doing some work in the garden together. I had carried the heavier things for her and helped her cut the flowers. I didn’t really like garden work, but it kept me away from the dark thoughts that clouded my mind. Well, at least I though it would.

But as we sat down at the table, the smell of summer surrounding us, I couldn’t hold it back anymore.

It just had been too much.

When I had started crying she had looked at me. She had really looked at me. It was the first time for the past months that she had really looked at me, like she finally saw what I’ve become.

The only difference was that she didn’t.

She didn’t see it. She didn’t understand it.

But when she asked me what was wrong I started talking anyway. I opened up to her.

I told her everything. Well, almost everything.

I told her that I felt like I wasn’t good enough for everyone, that I felt like I was just disappointing everyone, that I never did anything right, that I hated myself for feeling that way, that I hated myself for being that weak, that I never wanted to end up like this, that I didn’t deserve sympathy because there were people who had it worse, that I didn’t know what I was doing anymore.

And that’s when she opened up too. That’s when she told me she had been depressed when she was younger. That’s when she had told me that she had just been laying on the bed in her room for days, crying, thinking, just trying to keep on breathing. That’s when she had told me that she had been seeing a therapist.

It was hard to listen. The words reached my brain, but it took some time to comprehend them, to actually understand what she had said.

She had said that she had been broken.

Hope had started building up inside me, hope that she would understand me, even though I thought she never could.

But I got disappointed.

Because instead of asking me if I wanted help she just said that I needed some time. That it would get better.

But I didn’t need time. I already had enough time to understand that. All I needed was help.

But I wouldn’t ask for it. I never would. I never could.

Maybe it was the hopelessness that made me do the last step. I was just so hopeless, I didn’t think there was anything else to do.

I showed her my arms. I showed her my bruised arms. I showed her my wrists. I showed her the scars on my wrists. I showed her my true self. I showed her my broken insides.

She didn’t cry.

She didn’t scream.

She just said I should stop it. Nothing more.

Not that it was wrong to do it, that it wouldn’t make sense. Not that it would hurt her to see me like that.

It wasn’t upsetting her, it wasn’t something to give much attention to for her.

She only did one thing.

She asked me why I did it and I said I didn’t know.

But I knew it. I had always known it. I had thought there would be no escape. But maybe there would have been. Now it was too late for me.

When I had opened up, I had expected her to ask me if I had wanted to see a therapist. I don’t know what I would have said, yes or no, I really don’t know. All I know is that I had wanted her to ask me. Because it would have showed me that she cared.

The only thing she said was that she would check on me now. That she would check my arms if there would be new scars. That she would watch me, that she was interested in how I felt.

But you know what? She never did. She never checked. She never looked on my arms again, she didn’t look for new cuts, she didn’t fucking look.

That was what hurt the most. It hurt so fucking much because she just doesn’t care. She doesn’t care if I’m destroying myself, she doesn’t look for me, she doesn’t help. Maybe she couldn’t help me anyway, but the worst about it is that she doesn’t even try.

It makes me die a little inside. It makes me curl up in a ball in my bed, fingernail digging into my skin whenever the knife isn’t near, but it’s not enough. Nothing is ever enough. Just like I am not enough for anyone, like I will never please anybody. I was just not made for it. I was born a failure.

But at the same time, I wouldn’t want any other mother. Can you understand that?

I still love her. She’s still my mother. She’s still her. She didn’t run away.

I wrote a poem about her, that day. I was so angry, I was so hurt.

_Are your eyes closed, or why don’t you see?_

_I’m waiting for you, waiting for you to set me free,_

_Set me free with your words, I need them so bad,_

_Tell me about the hope I never had._

_Because hope is what only others can give,_

_The feeling of love, something that makes me want to live,_

_And even though I’m only taking for now,_

_There could be a chance of giving some day._

I wasn’t empty. I was too full. I could never understand how people said they felt empty, how they said they didn’t feel at all anymore. I just couldn’t understand. I was basically exploding with feelings, sadly they weren’t good ones, they were horribly and slowly killing me, ripping me into pieces. But I wasn’t empty, I could never be empty.

I wish I was. I wish I was empty. I wish I wouldn’t feel anything.

I wish I wouldn’t feel anymore.


	3. Of Guitars And Guts

Of guitars and guts

Is there blood left to give? I don’t know it anymore. The tears had stopped flowing a long time ago. But still, there was still something in there, something I let flow out like my will to not to give up. My hope was drowning in the red liquid, it was screaming for help but nobody listened.

I still remember one day when the tears where still there, when there was still something to give. Something that brought attention to the masses. Who wouldn’t look at a crying boy?

Boys never cried.

That’s what everyone said.

I didn’t cry anymore. My wrists did.

They didn’t know that back then, he didn’t know it back then. It was shortly after I had him, my savior, my death, when it happened.

The way he made me feel, it was poisonous, the rush in my veins, the feeling of being alive. He had given it back to me.

It had been in winter and we needed to do a project in music class. Everyone of us needed to present something, a song that we had made of our own. I had planned of just not doing it and getting an F, I had been totally okay with it.

Then he came along and destroyed all my plans. And together with my plans he had destroyed the walls I had built around myself, my protection. In just a matter of days he had convinced me to actually do the project. I gave it a chance, just like I gave him a chance. I gave me a chance.

I started working day and night, I barely slept, I barely ate. All I did was concentrating on this one song, this only thing I could do to achieve some recognition for the things I did, the only chance to make a difference in my hopeless life. I didn’t want to fuck it up. By the end of 3 days and nights I had finished it, the last word was written, the last strings picked.

The song was ready for presentation.

The problem was that I wasn’t.

Standing in front of a lot of people had always scared me, it had become to something I tried to avoid since the day the thing with my poem had happened. Never again in my life I had wanted to feel this way. I knew I just couldn’t have done it. But I also knew that if I didn’t do it now, he would feel sad. I didn’t want him to be sad. I had enough sadness for both of us.

But as the first lesson came when we started to present I didn’t raise my hand to volunteer. And the next week I didn’t raise my hand either. And the week after that too. It was the last lesson we had for the presentations and when the teacher asked who still was left it was just that shy girl from the seat at the window that always stared out of it and watched the birds fly through the air, the girl that never said a word in class. Somehow we were similar to each other, we both wanted to be free. The difference was the way we defined freedom. The freedom I craved was being numb, being untouchable, a life without feelings. Because without feelings there was no disappointment, no heart ache, no pain in my chest. I didn’t care that it meant to not feel lucky, I just wanted everything to stop. I wanted the pain to stop, no matter what.

She was stronger than me. She raised her hand when the teacher asked which one of us wanted to start. She decided to try. She hadn’t given up. Perhaps it was because of those reasons I listened to her closely, the way she played the piano, the words she sang. It touched me, something I hadn’t thought was still possible. Well, at least I thought no one could do it except him.

When she sat down she looked out of the window again. Her name was Jen.

Internally I was screaming as I stood up, I begged myself to sit down again as I grabbed the guitar, I prayed for mercy as I sat down in front of all of them. Their shallow faces looked at me, the emptiness in their eyes was almost too much to bear. I wanted to feel this emptiness, I wanted to be like them. Dull and numb. But at the same time there he was sitting in the last row, next to the empty table that I had been sitting at only seconds ago, his eyes glistening with anticipation.

It was difficult to start, but I wanted to keep his eyes sparkling. I had changed my mind. I didn’t want to be dull. I wanted to be alive, just like him.

My hands felt heavy as I strummed the first chords, the rhythm taking over my body and I found myself singing the words. I was singing it for him.

_Are you still there to catch me as I fall,_

_Are you still there to break the wall,_

_Will you still be there to take my hand,_

_Will you still be there and try to understand,_

_That we’re different and that we always will be,_

_We’re invisible, and no one can see,_

_What this world has stopped to give,_

_With every day we die and live._

_The time they took, they never gave back,_

_When the colours faded everything became black,_

_Because it’s all they do,_

_The take but never give,_

_With every day we die and live._

_Are you still there to follow me wherever I go,_

_Are you still there to teach me things I need to know,_

_Will you still be there to say the things I need to hear,_

_Will you still be there to protect me from the things I fear,_

_I know that we’re different and we’ll always be_

_We’re invisible, and no one can see,_

_What this world has stopped to give,_

_With every day we die and live._

_The time they took, they never gave back,_

_When the colours faded everything became black,_

_Because it’s all they do,_

_The take but never give,_

_With every day we die and live._

_Would you care, would you cry,_

_If I told you we’re all destined to die?_

_Would you wait, would you stay,_

_If I told you what I need to say?_

_Would you have stayed if you’d known all of this before,_

_Will you stay right now and forevermore?_

A single tear rolled down my cheek. I didn’t care about it. Those were the words my heart had said, not my mouth. Those were the words my soul had bled, not what my brain had produced.

I stood up and placed the guitar in the holder and walked through the middle row of the classroom. The silence was deafening and I smiled as they turned their heads to watch me walk. When I sat down next to him I knew he was proud. And for the first time in a really long time, the pain became a little less.

I had cried that day. Even if it was only a single tear, I had been crying. I had been crying on the inside. Waterfalls, oceans, everything became the clear liquid that meant life. The life I longed for, a clear and defined life, flowing and calm, not sharp and churning.

Now it was different. I let my arms cry for me. They built my own ocean


	4. Of Boys And Bedroom floors

Of boys and bedroom floors

If we go back to the day where I read that poem, the day when the knife met my skin for the first time, you could see how different I was back then.

I had known who I was, I had known what I wanted.

I wasn’t sure anymore now. At least not until he had started talking to me.

One day he had just sat down next to me and started talking. I had blocked him, I had tried not to listen to what he was saying, I had been sure he was just like the others, someone who wanted nothing but hurt. Today I wished I had listened to him closer, I wanted to know what the first words he had said to me were, I had wanted to form them so they could be ours, something that belonged both of us. But I hadn’t listened. I had never listened.

Was it the regret that made me weak or was it the affection I had felt towards him since the beginning?

It didn’t matter, this weakness, it wasn’t good. It was wrong. It was fucking confusing. Who was he to make me feel like this?

This weakness, it had made me listen. And this weakness, it had been my saving.

When I finally started to hear the words he said all of them made sense. The things he said, the spoke to me on a deep emotional basis. He had told me that he had wanted to me since the day I had read that poem, he had told me that he had really liked it. What had really surprised me that he had said that he had felt like there was someone who could finally see the world as it was. Someone, who didn’t want to be like they wanted him to be. Me. He didn’t think I was wrong, he thought I was good at what I was doing, at writing my poems, at bleeding my heart out through the words. If he had just know that this wasn’t the only way I was bleeding he probably could have been saved from so much pain. I should have warned him, I should have told him, I should have. There are so many things I should have done, so many things I never did, it didn’t really matter anymore. It was too late now anyway.

I found myself talking to him about things that I liked, things that interested me, things that I thought. After the lesson we continued talking, we spent the break on a bench eating our lunch and talking. We found out that we wouldn’t have the next lesson together, so he had asked me if he could come over to me after school. I don’t know why I said yes. Perhaps because I finally felt like someone understood me.

I couldn’t wait until the lesson was over. I almost fell from my chair when I tried to get up hastily as the bell rang and stormed out of the classroom. When I left the tall building behind me I could already see him, standing at the gate of the school, his face searching the crowd. He was looking for me. A feeling I had almost forgotten filled my body, it made me feel weightless. The happiness made me almost stumble down the stairs, it was like I was drunk.

We walked the way home, we walked and we talked. It was easy to talk with him, I noticed. It was easy to listen to him as well. He wasn’t boring me, he actually interested me than I wanted to admit. When we reached the house I was living in with my family, I had refused to call it home lately, doubts reached my mind. What was I doing? I barely knew him, he barely knew me and yet I let him come over like we’ve been friends since forever? It sounded so wrong but it felt right. I decided to give it a go.

When we stepped in I avoided the kitchen and we walked straight upstairs and into my room. I didn’t want to meet any of my family members, I just wanted to spend my time with Tom alone.

As we stepped into my room we just stood there awkwardly for a while, not knowing what to do. It was the first time I felt awkward in his presence. I just felt so exposed, he saw my room the way it was, representing me and there was nothing what I could do about it. But instead of commenting the pictures on my walls, the unmade sheets of my bed, he just said something that entirely surprised me. “Can you read me one of your poems? One you really like? It’s okay if you don’t want to, but…” he stopped for a moment and looked at me intently. “…I’d really like to hear it.”

I had just stood there, not knowing what to do. Should I? What if he was just one of them, going home after I had read the best of me to him, and just go and tell his friends how stupid I was. But he had seemed so understanding, he had seemed like someone that was honest. Like I could trust him.

Because of all of this, I decided to do what he had asked me.

“Okay.” I just said, not making any moves to go look for a sheet of paper with a poem on it. I didn’t need to, I knew it by heart. It wasn’t me who moved, it was him. He just lay down on the floor and closed his eyes. I didn’t really know what he was doing but I didn’t care. Only when he patted the free space next to him I started to move, I sunk to my knees and lay down next to him. It was just fair if we both lay down, I thought. He had closed his eyes and just lay there, it seemed like he was sleeping. I knew he wasn’t sleeping. He was waiting.

_“Will I be remembered for the person I was,_

_Or will I be remembered as the person they wanted me to be?_

_Will I be remembered for the things I did,_

_Or will I be remembered because of their reasons?_

_Will I be remembered,_

_Or will I be forgotten?”_

He was quiet as he listened to me, only his breathing reached my ears.

When I finished I felt like there was something else to say.

“The thing is, I already know the answer.” I closed my eyes as well, breathing in deeply.

“Really, do you?” his voice was deeper than mine. Only now I noticed it how he sounded. It was a calm voice, it had a warm sound it in.

“I think I do.” I hesitated for a moment before I continued. “I am already forgotten. Nobody would ask for me if I wasn’t there in school one day. No one would even notice. I will never be remembered because I was never really there.”

He stayed quiet for a while. I knew he was thinking about my words. Eventually he started speaking.

“I don’t think you will be forgotten. Because I will remember you.”

And will. I just knew it back then, and somehow I still know it.

He will remember me.

Just as I will remember him.

Mark.


	5. Of Monsters And Myself

Of monsters and myself

I don’t know if I broke him. It was never my intention, really. Just like he wanted to save me I wanted to protect him. But in the process he had needed to endure me, the monster I had become.

At some point I think it couldn’t have come any other way. It was like we were supposed to meet, but I still wished it would have been under different circumstances. Would he ever understand me entirely? I think he could. There was just time as a factor, and I knew it would take some.

One day he came over and I knew it was different. The feeling that was radiating from him, the question in his eyes. I didn’t know what he was asking for back then, but now it was clear. I even wondered how I could have not seen it come.

When the door closed behind him, we were alone, alone with our thoughts and our hopes, our desire and our fear.

And the question. The question that stood between us. I could have broken us apart, or it could have gotten us even closer to one another. Back then I didn’t know what was going to happen. Everything was still open.

“Have you ever hurt yourself, Tom?”

I shouldn’t have laughed, but I had. I had laughed like a maniac, it was just too ridiculous. When I answered him I looked at the ceiling.

“Ever?” I asked him. “Always.” I looked at him now. “If it wasn’t in a physical way, it was mentally.”

He looked at me questioningly, his eyes were sad. In the end I think he hadn’t wanted to believe it until I’d admit myself. He must have heard the rumors at school though, otherwise he probably wouldn’t have asked. A boy had seen the scars on my arms when I was washing my hands in the bathroom one time, after one day half of the school had heard about it.

“It’s not always about cutting your skin, sometimes it’s about the thoughts you think, the thoughts that never let you go. I am torturing myself, and it’s slowly killing me.”

I laughed, bitterly this time. “If I’m not dead inside already.”

He cried. He cried for me. He cried because of me. I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t watch him. I hurt him. I hurt him so bad that he cried. I turned around so I didn’t need to see him anymore.

“There’s another poem I really like. I haven’t written it down yet. I don’t need to, it’s burnt into my mind. Do you want to hear it?”

I turned my head around so I could see him. He nodded, the tears still rolling down his cheeks.

“ _My scars are my stories,_

_And the words are written with blood.”_

I turned around to face him again. It was cowardly to not look at him now. He had been so strong. Stronger than I ever could imagine I could be. I had hoped that he could be strong enough for us both. I know it was selfish to think that way, but what should I do?

“I wished I could write your story. Or at least play a part in it. I would let you have a happy end. I would write it so beautifully so would never think about hurting yourself again. I would always be by your side to stop you from doing it.”

He smiled now, his face wet from the tears.

“And I will be by your side, not only in a story, but in life. Forever, if that’s what it takes.”

He had stayed. He was still here.

But now I had a question.

Would I be staying?


	6. Of Warriors and Words

Of warriors and words

I had always wanted to change something in this world. Just like he had changed something. Just like I had changed throughout the process of destroying myself he had changed in the progress of saving me. Did he save me? I wasn’t sure now. I just knew that he was giving me all he had to give and I was taking it. One day, one day I’d give it back to him.

I knew now that we shared something that I had never shared with somebody before.

It was love. A love so demanding that we would never be able to let each other go. We were meant to share our secrets, our pains. I gave him my pain and he took it. But I also gave him my love and he took it.

He had helped me in so many ways, it was uncountable.

One day he had told me that I should write down all of my poems into one little book. He had given it to me for my birthday and it was the best present I had received on that day by far. It was small and it the pages were blank, no lines that would put my poems into forms, nothing that could restrain them. Only me and my hand could do that, my hand that was led by my mind, my soul and my heart.

The little midnight blue book and Mark where the things that kept me going, they were my reason to not give up. Well, it was more accurate to say that I regained my hope. I had given up a long time ago, but through Mark I had learnt that you could learn to hope again, it just took some time. And together with him, I had that time.

One day, all the pages of the book were filled. All of them, except two. The first and the last page, they were still blank. I had never known how to fill them. If it should be an explanation, a song, a sentence, I hadn’t known it back then. I knew it now.

Today, I wouldn’t add another bruise on my wrist.

Instead, I would add another line on the paper of the little blue book.

I started with the last page, I liked to think it was rebellious, to do it in reverse.

My hand didn’t shake when I wrote the words, but my hands felt heavy.

_And when I’m dead and gone,_

_I just want you to know that this was not suicide,_

_It was murder._

 

Mark would understand them. They knew how they had tortured me. He knew that I never wanted to be like this. He knew it wasn’t my fault.

But I didn’t wanted to end it. I didn’t want to die. Not anymore.

I had decided to put them at the end of the book to end all of this. The hurting, the pain. But not this way. I didn’t need to die to do that. I just needed to start living again.

And on the first page of the book I wrote a dedication, a dedication to all the people that had played a role in my life, a dedication because there was still so much I needed to say.

_Of poems and people,_

_Of mothers and memories,_

_Of fathers and failures,_

_Of jocks and jokes,_

_Of liars and lifetimes,_

_Of guitars and guts_

_Of losers and love,_

_Of warriors and words,_

_Of monsters and myself,_

_This book is full of them,_

_Just as I was too full,_

_And I don’t want to just take,_

_So I give this to them,_

_The blood has dried and so has the ink,_

_This is for my savior, my love,_

_Because it’s also_

_Of saviors and survivors._

**Author's Note:**

> This story is fiction. Please don't cut. It's going to get better.


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